Thursday, July 03, 2008

Anne Thompson has issues with a new list of Top 100 WesternsRob Scheer thinks Hollywood should study Hancock for the mistakes it makes and what they representGlenn Kenny on the new and unpleasant cinematic character trend: contempt for the audience! (Wanted fits nicely in you know)Sheila O'Malley on William Holden: A Different Kind of HeroJA (and the rest of the blogosphere actually) freaks over the new Dark Knight poster. It is spectacularly creepy.Seth @ Defamer warns of a possible Friends film now that Sex & the City has tested the off-the-air-onto-the-screen watersRay Pride on the new David Cronenberg operaThe FlyJ.D. believes in the bohemian revolution. So does WALL•E apparently...

And one more note on the EMMYs... (nominations announced on the 17th). I'm hearing from Low Resolution (who heard it from Gold Derby) that Mary McDonnell's towering work on Battlestar Galactica is in the finalist Best Actress list. I'd almost rather not know that. It's like a carrot dangling in front of me. The EMMY voters are a cruel undiscerning lot and they'll let my desperate bunny-self starve. I just know it. Her competitition: Patricia Arquette, "Medium", Glenn Close, "Damages", Minnie Driver, "The Riches", Sally Field, "Brothers and Sisters", Mariska Hargitay, "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit", Holly Hunter, "Saving Grace", Elisabeth Moss, "Mad Men", Kyra Sedgwick, "The Closer" and Jeanne Tripplehorn, "Big Love". The ideal roster would surely read: Field, Moss, McDonnell and Tripplehorn... and either Hunter or Driver. But I don't suspect that the nominees will come close to matching those womanly riches.

Wow, is this the Emmys we're talking about or the Oscars? (I'd say Golden Globes, but as the GG's reward movies and TV that's sort of redundant.) Maybe it isn't true that there are no good parts for women - it's just that those good parts are on TV, not the movies.

I like "Friends", but how would a movie of it even work? They'd have to change the aesthetic of it, since it's it's all one-angle multi-camera stagey. "Sex And The City" was filmed cinematically - "Friends" is not.

In what universe can Tombstone seriously be considered better in any regard than Once Upon a Time in the West, easily one of the best things cinema's ever produced? I mean, I'm ticked about Unforgiven and McCabe and Mrs. Miller, but Once Upon a Time is like the BEST MOVIE EVER! I cannot even see straight on this one.

Wow, that's awesome/a tease about McDonnell. She's been getting effusive praise for years as Roslin, but there are so many default names among those finalists that I can't imagine they'll pass on enough of them to make room for Roslin. We'll probably see Arquette, Hargitay, etc. yet AGAIN.

Have any major actress contenders' shows gone off the air this past year? I don't know TV well enough to say. But Mary'd need a usually filled slot to open up somewhere to even have a shot.

Plus, this season was very ensemble-y, and it was also only half a season..

BUT, McDonnell had some primo cancer bait to work with in eps like Faith and The Hub. She's always had the best shot at an emmy nod of any of them, I think, when you combine name recognition/prestige/career with the type of role it is (baity, cancer, president, lots of romantic drama subtext). But then it's always hard to get a lead nod for such an ensemble piece, unless you're on, say, The West Wing.

But does this mean the show will be eligible AGAIN next year, since there's still half a season to go, apparently not coming out until next year???

Meh. Discussing BSG relative to the Emmys at all is very painful and unrewarding.

BUT we must remember also that the show has in fact broken though with the TV academy, albeit in a minor way, with it finally getting writing/directing nods and winning the visual FX Emmy. And there's been a lot of press about this season being (sort of) the last. So maybe it's more on their radar screen now?

But I'd be thrilled to see McDonnell get prime recognition for her work. The Peabody, I think, made BSG a little more palatable to Emmy voters, but as long as Hargitay, Field and Arquette are in their shows, they'll get nominated just for showing up to work.

When is Hollywood going to realize that of the Arquette family, David is the only one with any acting talent ? And yes, I realize what that says.